The power of silence

I know what you’re thinking. You’re wrong. This post isn’t about philosophy.

It’s about Bollywood. It’s been quite a while since I saw my last Bollywood movie, “Iqbal”. Any decent observer of the Indian movie industry can tell you that one of the defining characteristics of a Bollywood movie, is its extravagant usage, or rather, dependence on music for expression and ambience. Now in general I feel that there is nothing wrong with such dependence. Music is critical to any form of commercial cinema anywhere in the world, and is one of the most powerful tools available to the creative vanguards of movie-making.

Any tool’s existence is a necessary and sufficient proof of existence of an ill-use of the same. Bollywood, I think, sometime in the past, went hyper on music. And then it did that again. And then over and over and over again. Do Indians have some special psychological connection with music that the rest of world doesn’t?

My explanation for the overweening excess is two-fold: Creative inertia and stunted cinematic growth. Bollywood has had a very uneven growth from its initial roots - while SFX and editing technology is constantly approaching western standards, aspects such as utilization of music hasn’t quite followed the transformation of Hollywood music from the musicals of ’70s to the present day’s poignant soundtracks/backgrounds. Creative inertia, however, is a typical Indian phenomenon, a fear of the new and the bold, the much-ridden concept of the “formula”.

Anyways, the central topic is a repercussion of the above, it’s the loss of silence. The most talented of movie-makers have shown the world how silence can be the most soul-entrenching form of expression. That moment of complete vacuity before the deciding penalty kick; or that eerily silent search for grit in the face of certain terror. Or the moments of charged emotions where the talking is done by dripping eyes or grimacing face.

Today’s Bollywood is garish, loud and vocal in comparison to its own past image. When I think of silence in cinema, I invariably remember a particular enactment in “Kaagaz ke phool” where Gurudutt and Waheeda Rehman are just standing and looking at each other from almost 2 meters away. I’ve seen people cry to that scene. Saying nothing sometimes says the most.

Who isn't a nationalist?

Mangal Pandey is an average movie. The makers had a choice between going for a realistic portrayal of the historic events; or blowing the facts apart for dramatic appeal. That is a choice every period movie maker faces. And the job in this case becomes difficult because of a certain lack of detailed documentation on the hero, his life and the actual events.

What I found to be interesting, though, was the strange path the makers of this movie chose in between the extremes of documentary accuracy and fantastical hyperbole. They gave up on accuracy for trivial exaggerations, but couldn’t find it in them to twist it enough to give a climax worth remembering. It reminds me of a contestant I once saw on American Idol qualifiers. The talented girl gathered enough guts to enact a dance sequence along with her vocals in the no-instruments round, but the trio of Simon-Paula-Randy were hardly convinced. It was because she did her little dance thingy at the wrong times, and with an irresolute intensity. The outcome was a mishmash that made me feel that she could have done better without playing the dance card.

Mangal Pandey is for me the same story. Not enough distortion to produce a climax of significance. And climaxes make or break movies. It’s the climax that gave Independence Day its extra millions, and the lack of it that made War of the Worlds revenues dip into mediocrity. You play the nationality card, and you build up the story for a climactic battle, and then you show the battle as a hasty scroll of imagery! That is illegal in the world of climactonomics.

Okay, enough of Mangal bashing. There are a few things to watch out for in the movie, however. Aamir, his moustache and his overbearing preening of the same while receiving his death sentence, are worth a watch. That, and the catchy title song make the movie worth a view. And then there’s Rani Mukherjee. She's looking tremendous again, and her growth as a seasoned actor is clearly visible. The romance between Amisha and the firang could have been built upon better. A note to Amisha – Take it easy with the expressions. Its really not about getting your eyebrows as high as possible.

We were fortunate (or unfortunate?) enough to get tickets to the night show of the movie on the 14^th of August in current bookings. That in Bangalore is a miracle. Even when the 3 ticket seats were located at a radius of 10 seats to each other, we gratefully settled down in the theater and spotted each others’ locations. Just then a notice came up on the screen saying that the National Anthem would be playing in a few seconds. Boundaries, it struck me, are quite relativistic. Work made me shift bases from my erstwhile residence in Delhi to the unpredictable and fast paced city of Bangalore. When I say home today, I mean Delhi. Home meant dad’s flat to me for 22 years of my life. A friend who went for studies to the States last year calls India her home. Maybe when our great great grandchildren settle in the artificially habitable environs of far away planets and satellites; home may come to mean “earth”.

Until then, a nation is the strongest sense of belonging for a human being. And if you come to think of it, the feeling of belonging is the strongest that man possesses. So you can hate your nation, critique its governance, prophesize its doom, leave it forever, and change your citizenship. But you cannot help your blood from racing every time you hear “Jan Gan Mann” being played.

You cannot help being a nationalist.